Queen's agrees plan to axe more than 100 academic jobs
Queen’s University Belfast today agreed a controversial plan to cut more than 100 academic and research jobs as part of a cost-cutting exercise.
The university’s ruling senate announced the plan as it set itself the challenge of becoming one of the world’s top 100 universities over the next five years.
A total of 103 staff will be offered voluntary severance packages.
Cuts are being made across all 20 schools in the university, but will mean the end of German as a honours degree subject.
The lecturers’ union, the University and College Union, opposes the cuts and lobbied members of the senate when they gathered for their meeting.
The union said the plan was to get rid of the targeted staff by Christmas and that it was a move which would cause major disruption to teaching at Queen’s.
It said: “The whole ethos of the plan is concentration on international research at the expense of teaching and research on local issues. This is not popular with the politicians who are our paymasters.”
The cuts of 103 are being made from an initial potential list of almost 300 and following consultation with unions.
The university Vice Chancellor, Professor Peter Gregson, said the academic plan agreed by the senate built on an earlier assessment exercise which identified where the university could compete globally.
“To deliver our potential we need to have the right people, doing the right things; that’s what this plan is about,” he said.
He added: “All 20 of our academic schools have been involved in putting this plan together, and together we have identified where we need to invest.
“Balancing competing priorities is difficult and we have faced hard choices. But the process has been thorough,” he added.
He said the plan was designed to be cost-neutral, with investment in priority areas being resourced through savings elsewhere.
The realignment of resources within some academic schools would ensure teaching and learning were high quality, cost-effective and sustainable, said Queen’s.
The professor said money released by the cuts would be re-invested in jobs which were more closely aligned to the university’s current academic needs.
The university needed to be responsive to the needs of its stakeholders, including prospective students, he said.
“This requires some changes in staffing levels across the university and a managed moratorium and an enhanced voluntary severance scheme will be used to facilitate the necessary changes,” he said.
Addressing specific changes, the Vice-Chancellor said: “Although we will no longer be offering a joint honours degree in German, Queen’s students who wish to learn the language will be able to do so in our state-of-the-art Language Centre in the new Library at Queen’s.
“In other areas – geography, archaeology and palaeoecology, politics, international studies and philosophy, electronic, electrical engineering and computer science, mathematics and physics – we will be refocusing our activities and introducing new programmes which meet current and future student demand.”
Over the course of the plan a number of initiatives will be launched, including the development of a multi-million pound Executive Education Centre in Belfast enhancing continuous professional development provision and making a direct impact on the development of core skills in the Northern Ireland economy, said Queen’s.
There will also be the establishment of a Junior Academy of Music building on the international reputation of the University’s School of Music and Sonic Arts.
The School of English is to develop a masters degree in practice and applied broadcast journalism delivered through a collaborative partnership with the BBC.
A wide range of new undergraduate and postgraduate programmes are also being launched, including a new degree in politics, philosophy and economics; the provision of 10 MA bursaries in legislative studies and practice, in association with the Northern Ireland Assembly; new programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level in education; and substantial increases to the postgraduate intake in psychology.
There will also be further investment in drug research, harnessing the capabilities of chemistry, pharmacy, biological sciences, and medicine, dentistry and biomedical sciences.
Prof Gregson said: “These initiatives, along with the opening in September of our world-leading new library, demonstrate the commitment Queen’s has to delivery at the highest level.
“We are delivering a £300m (€350m) capital programme which is transforming the campus. We could not achieve this without rigorous academic planning and prudent management of our resources.”
